Jan 26

Do You Make These Traffic Mistakes in Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing No Comments »

‘They’ told you that social media marketing is an awesome way to drive a boatload of free targeted traffic to your websites in record speed…

You have now spent weeks adding a huge list of potential buyers to your friends on Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. You’re telling all your friends about your wonderful products. But why haven’t YOU gotten the massive boost in website traffic that ‘they’ are getting. And why haven’t your friends become your buyers?

Why?

You need to realize this simple critical fact – Social networking sites are for SOCIALIZING! (Really?)

The millions of users who sign up to participate in these social networking sites DO NOT join with the intention to buy anything. They don’t expect to be sold to, and they don’t like people trying to sell them products. They’re just there to meet new, interesting people, make some friends and have some fun.

So how in the world are you ever going to sell to them then?

Get this; people don’t buy from businesses and corporations (Shock Horror)!

People buy from PEOPLE!

(This concept is especially important when marketing on social media sites.)

Yes! You want to add as many friends as you can. But make sure they’re not just a number to you, and you’re not just a number to them.

You need to first make friends and build relationships before you can throw some of your links and websites at them. You need to take a more SUBTLE and HUMAN approach when marketing on these sites. You need to be yourself. So tell people who you are, build that connection, and build trust. Get people to like you, and THEN they will buy from you.

So here’s the simple secret.

Are you ready?

Secret – You have to be a PERSON and not a BUSINESS!

Start getting tons of Free Targeted Traffic from social sites with sneaky tactics exposed in these 3 FREE videos! Click Here…

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Jan 25

How to download,put YouTube videos to iPod, iPod touch, iPod nano?

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A useful tutorial of how to download,put YouTube videos to iPod, iPod touch, iPod nano.

More and more people prefer to express our feelings and share our ideals with others in this open and comprehensive world, no daunt, YouTube, one of the biggest original videos sites, is our best choice.

But have you face these problems before, when you want to download those amazing videos and save it forever, and enjoy it on our iPod from time to time?

I searched on Google, Yahoo answers and post ?how to put YouTube video to iPod? on large number of forums.Fortunately, I found some software, they?re Wondershare YouTube Downloader,Orbit Downloader, 4U download YouTube video

Here I introduce Wondershare Youtube Downloader for example; it destined to help us to put YouTube videos to iPod, iPod Touch, iPod Nano. Not only will download YouTube video to iPod , but it will also rename them, and even let you convert it to any format in one easy step, and enjoy it on iPod freely. Just activate it, play the video from YouTube you want to capture, and youtube downloader will sniff the video intelligently, and start to download it once you choose to download it. Then put those files to iPod, you can enjoy it on iPod touch, iPod nano . With a YouTube Downloader, you can easy download YouTube videos to iPod, iPod Touch, iPod Nano.

How to download Youtube videos?
Step1: Download and install YouTube Downloader
Step2: Launch YouTube Downloader and play any YouTube video.
YouTube Downloader will sniff the playing video automatically, and then a pop-up window will ask you to download the videos or skip. Once you select ?Download?, YouTube Downloader will start to download it.

Step3:Select any videos in the downloading list firstly, and then click ?Convert?.
Not only can Youtube Downloader download and put youtube videos to iPod, but also it can convert flv files into MPEG, AVI, WMV ,WMA,mp3 etc.
Step4:Set the target format and output path of the converted files.
It’s really convenient for you set up output format, even the some parameters are also available for you to adjust. And there are a large numbers of formats for you to select.

Step5:Click “OK” to start converting, and the conversion is completely under your control. You can also click “Open” to browse the converted files freely.

Put YouTube video to iPod, iPod Touch, iPod Nano via iTunes
Step1:Launch iTunes. Click downloaded YouTube videos and select “Add File to Library”
The added files will be automatically classified in the Music or Movies Category under LIBRARY.
Step2:Click My IPOD under the DEVICEs firstly, and tick ?Manually manage music and videos? option in the Summary window:
Step3:Drag the YouTube videos from the library file list to your iPod.
Then click the YouTube videos under MY IPOD, you can enjoy YouTube video on iPod.

Wondershare Software

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Jan 25

Inq1 is New Facebook Phone – Inq 1 Exclusive to 3 Mobile UK

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A new manufacturer has entered the UK mobile phones market with a bang, INQ have teamed up with the dedicated 3G network 3 Mobile to release the INQ1 Facebook mobile phone, an exclusive social networking focussed handset that will keep users in touch with their friends pictures and status updates on Facebook whilst they are out and about.

This is the first time a mobile phone has actually been dubbed ‘The Facebook Phone’, most handsets with internet access allow users to follow friends on Facebook but the new INQ1 takes it a stage further.

The INQ 1 gives users everything they would expect from a

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Jan 23

Myspace as a Business Tool

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Everyone is aware that Myspace is a social networking website. It is a user submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, photos and much more. Folks consider myspace as something personal. People are aware that they can personalize their profile in myspace page and design myspace in such a way that others can understand what kinda character they have.

HOW BUSINESS?

However for a businessman, who turns every available option into opportunities, myspace is a great business promotional tool. Wondering how? Social networking websites like myspace, when utilized properly, acts as a platform for getting more contacts. More contacts mean more business. Myspace, through its sound networking capability creates a buzz about your business. Getting more people know about your company are stepping stones to success in business.

THE DESIGN

The main aspect in business promotion through myspace is the creation of a business profile. Businessmen are using myspace to introduce their business to others. The interest of people towards your company will increase depending on the design and uniqueness of your profile design in myspace. Nowadays professional web and graphic design companies provide various designs for profiles in myspace

There are professionals called myspace designers who design unique Custom MySpace Layouts, MySpace Div Layouts, and MySpace Flash Layouts and so on. These professional MySpace designs are very much effective in business promotion. Your profile page in MySpace is the most important of all the other since this page provides you an opportunity to feature your products, services and also any award?s that you have won. Once the profile page is designed right, the business is all set to go. There are many professional myspace designers who provide effective myspace designs.

THE BENEFITS

Social networks encourage individuals to express their own views, opinions and ideas, providing them an opportunity to make a deep market research. Now you would have understood the importance of being in myspace if you are a business-man. There are also forums in myspace which can be utilized for business discussions. Though these forums are not popular as classifieds, there are many people who find time to checkout the things posted online.

GET INTO YOUR SPACE BEFORE IT?S LATE:

It is not late to get your business on myspace now. Getting into myspace is quite simple. Myspace is highly customizable. If you are not sure of what has to be done to spice up your profile in myspace, all you have to do is to just hire a web-designer. I you find difficulty in getting a web-designers; there are also a lot of professional myspace designers waiting to help you. ?Opportunity is often missed by people because it is dressed in common?. So let us conclude that myspace is not only for teens and college students but it is also for all you busy, businessmen. So myspace is a great marketing tool!

Jonathan Mac writes articles on Professional MySpace Design. More articles written by Jonathan Mac about Custom MySpace Layouts, Design for MySpace and MySpace Design can be found in the internet.

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Jan 23

Twitterpated for Business Success: How To Use Twitter for Business

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From a business perspective, social sites provide an opportunity to get in front of potential customers and influence buying decisions because online social networkers are three times more likely to trust their online community of peers over advertising when making purchase decisions.* And, according to a Nielsen survey, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising with 78% of the respondents.*

So how do you use Twitter, the most celebrated social networking tool of the moment, and generate more business? Here is the formula I use for the clients that are using twitter. These same principles will work for every business because it’s not about the product or service you have, it’s about the people and creating a social buzz that will lead business to you.

Social marketing has grown exponentially especially over the last couple of years. From the beginnings of blogs, MySpace & FaceBook to networking sites like linked in and the newest star: Twitter.

What makes social marketing so popular? Simply put, human nature. We all want to feel like we are a part of a community whether it’s in the local community, like churches, teams etc. or in the online community like Twitter. Thanks to the internet, our sense of community can include people from across the United States and beyond our borders bringing us into the global community.

From a business perspective, social sites provide an opportunity to get in front of potential customers and influence buying decisions because online social networkers are three times more likely to trust their online community of peers over advertising when making purchase decisions.* And, according to a Nielsen survey, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising with 78% of the respondents.*

In other words, if someone is recommended to your business by a co-worker, neighbor, friend or online network member, that person is 78% more likely to buy from your company. Because of this fact, 81% of people in marketing who were surveyed said they would be spending as much, if not more, on social media than they do (or did) on traditional advertising.*

So how do you use Twitter, the most celebrated social networking tool of the moment, and generate more business? Here is the formula I use for the clients that are using twitter. These same principles will work for every business because it’s not about the product or service you have, it’s about the people and creating a social buzz that will lead business to you.

First, of course, you need to set up an account in twitter, if you don’t already have one. When setting up your account be sure to add a photo of yourself or something representative of your business. Since the key to networking on twitter is to have followers, the photo will make people more likely to follow you. Also, add your location (for local searches), a link to your website (http://ideasthatwork.net) and brief information about your business. For a more professional look it’s best to have a custom background created for your twitter site.

Side Note: TweetDeck.com is an awesome tool to help you manage the twitter universe.

Here are some basics you’ll need to know before you start tweeting:

* a follower is someone who is watching your updates.

* following refers to the act of you following other people.

* the @ symbol is placed before a users name within the tweet to reply to another user, and this will show up in the main twitter stream

* the # (hashtag) is used to help you sort by topic. For example you can use #survivor to tweet with other Survivor fans.

* direct messages go only to the user you are messaging

Once you’ve got your account set up start by posting at least 1 tweet so people who see your profile will know what you’re about.

Next you’ll need to look for people to follow. If you are really in this to gain business referrals, I strongly suggest you don’t follow every person on twitter. Instead, do a search for key terms that describe your business. If you want to concentrate on the local market, use the city and state to for search terms. If you are a wedding planner, look for the search term “wedding.” This search can easily be done within twitter by using the search box at the top of your home page.

There are also well respected members of the twitter community that you’ll want to follow based upon your business. For example business owners may want to follow Business Week (@bizweek). If you’re a coffee lover you may want to follow Starbucks (@starbucks). MrTweet.com can help you find people you may want to follow, just remember you don’t have to (nor should you) follow everyone.

Once you are now following people, you’ll see that people will begin to follow you back and you’ll even see people following you that you didn’t follow first. (All these follows can get confusing, hang in there it gets easier with practice) Remember, you want to follow people who are prospective customers or can lead you to prospective customers. You should also follow people in similar businesses as long as they won’t directly compete with you (unless, of course, you want to see what the competition is doing!) And when people follow you, check their profile before following back. There are hundreds of thousands of people on twitter and not everyone is going to be in your target market.

Now that you’re building your list of followers, you need to start tweeting on a regular basis. You can give tips related to your business, some people put out famous quotes or jokes, others are focusing on the day to day events that they are focused on. I trade off between tweeting about optimization tweets, projects I’m working on, this day in history info etc. I also tweet about everyday stuff like having the forces of technology working against me – argh! The more real and transparent you are, the more people will like you and engage you in conversation.

Twitter is also very good for self promotion – to a point. Nothing is worse than following someone who only talks about their products, services or only passes on their own blog material or articles. It’s a good idea to “retweet” or pass along the good information that others post. Within the 140 characters you can post links to specific information located anywhere on the web, including your website. All you need to do is copy the “URL” or web address of the specific page you want to link and paste it into twitter. Many times you’ll find that the web address for the link is too long for twitter, takes up too much space. In that case you’ll need to use a site like tinyurl.com to make the link shorter.

One big part of twitter is getting involved, participating. You can sit there and read the twitter stream but when you start to reply to people you’ll begin engage others and bring them into your world. The next thing you know, people will be checking out your website and referring you (via twitter) to others. When you are truly involved you’ll really reap the benefits. And, if you are running web analytics on your website, you’ll be able to see the traffic that is referred to you from twitter, and how much of that traffic converts into business.

Once you’ve got the hang of “tweeting” you’ll want to use twitter in more ways like integrating twitter with FaceBook and adding the twitter stream to your website.

There is no doubt that the internet has forever changed word-of-mouth. The power of the people is now greater than ever and is a part of everyone’s daily life. By using twitter as a part of your online marketing campaign you’ll be able to influence the buzz about you and your company.

PS… you can follow me on twitter: @tkimsey

*”Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape,” JupiterResearch, March 2007

*Nielsen, “Word of Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”

*TWI Surveys/Society for New Communications Research, (November 2007)

———————-

This article written by Teajai Kimsey, Interenet Marketing Strategist, Ideas That Work It may be reproduced and reprinted provided the author’s information including web link is kept intact.

Teajai “T J” Kimsey was the founder of Advanced Web Strategies Inc, (Beyond Web Design) an internet advertising agency serving over 300 clients with a full range of online services including web development, custom programming, search engine marketing and all channels of online marketing and marketing integration. After selling the company in 2007, Teajai began consulting clients on a variety of internet marketing issues.

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Jan 22

Generate Traffic to Your Website by Using Blogs

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Blogging can be used a means of generating traffic to your website, Face book or My Space page or even another blog. However, to achieve that, you have to advertise your blog itself, and that should be taken into account when you create a blog. Use your blog to make money as well as to have fun and meet people.
Blogging is a great way to get traffic to your website, and if you create a blog for no other reason than that, you are practically certain to get positive results. Blogging and traffic are made for each other, and there are several ways of using blogs to promote products on your site.

The first question is what kind of blog? Although there are alternatives, the most popular blogging software packages are Google’s Blogger and Word press .For more details visit to www.rss-announcers.com. This offers you four blogging options, and three ways of creating a blog to get traffic to your website.

Why four from just two blogging packages? Here is the answer to that question, and how if you create a blog using each, you will maximize your earning potential from your products:

Blogger
Blogger is blogging software owned by Google. Most people run their blog from Blogspot, Bloggers blogging host. When you do that you have less control over your blog than if you operate it from your own IP address. Blogger is very easy to use, and very easy to get started with, and is popular with those who don’t want to worry about templates, plugging and designing their own blogs.

Word press
Word press can also be run from the Word press hosting site. However, where Word presses scores over Blogger is in the fact that the software can be uploaded to your website, and can be run from there. This enables you to use any of the thousands of Word press plugging and templates that provide an almost unlimited degree of functionality in your blogging that will help to drive traffic to your website.

When you create a blog with any of these two different packages, whether run from your own computer or from the blog host, you are able to provide fresh content daily to your virtual website. Because that is what a blog is: it is in effect a web page, in the same way that a Squidoo lens and a page on a website is a web page.

Bogging and Search Engines
Blogging allows you a presence on search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and allows those with little idea of SEO or even of web design, to sell products online. There was a time when blogs were a rarity and something new, but blogging is now a way for anybody that knows how to create a blog can drive traffic to their website or to their blog page and help they make money through free advertising.

However, even a blog has to be advertised. Blogging in itself is not an advertising technique, but one of displaying your thoughts, idea, products or advertising your products. Now, you might think I am being a bit duplicitous here, stating that blogging is not a means of advertising yet can be used to advertise! Yet both statements are true. Let me explain why.

Is Blogging an Advertising Technique?
Yes and no. You can create a blog in order to get traffic to your website, and in that respect you are using your blog for advertising. You can place a link to your website: your squeeze page, sales page or just a content page. The question is, how do you get people to read your blog, and then click on one of these links? The link could be placed at the bottom of every post, and on a permanent page on your blog, but how do yet get traffic to your blog: you have the same problem now as getting traffic to your website!

What you have here is that blogging can be use to promote another site, whether it be a website, another blog or a social networking site such as Face book, My Space or You Tube. You can use all of these to promote and sell products. However, how do you get people, to find your blog? Creating a blog is fine, but that is only the start.

Use Article Marketing in Blogging
There is one way, and that is article marketing. By writing articles about your niche or product, and then including a link to your blog in the article, you can use the article to advertise your blog .For more information logon to www.feed-reader-links.com. If you can persuade a reader to click on your link, they will reach your blog on which you provide them with links to your website, your other blogs and your Face book and My Space home pages.

Perhaps you can’t write, and maybe don’t know how to use articles properly, or even where to get them. Well don?t worry. If you want to make the best use of the internet than create a blog, get blogging and then use the help provide online to make best use of your blog make money.

Blogging and traffic go together, and it is easy to create a blog to drive traffic to your website or any other online web page (such as another blog). You only need to know how.

I can show you how: check out Article Czar for information on how articles can be used to make money from your blog, and also to receive a free gift for visiting. I also include a small file that shows you how to set up your Word press blog on your website. Also check out Create A Blog for more general advice on creating your own blog.

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Jan 21

Facebook Used To Setup Profitable Advertisements – Learn The Secrets

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While many people believe it’s very to use facebook easily to setup a pay-per-click ad, it actually takes a lot of time and effort to make sure you have setup the perfect converting advertisement. Let’s go over the steps you need to take to ensure your advertisement pre qualifies your traffic to properly determine if they are buyer or just lookers.

First, when you are advertising on Facebook Ads you need to ensure that you are selling something that college kids wants to see. College kids account for about 60% of Facebooks Audience, so you need to be sure that your offer is interesting and grasps their attention almost immediately.

It amazes me how many people setup Ads that have no relevance or USP. (Unique selling point) One factor that you need to remember is the majority of people you are going to be marketing to are college students. An advertisement that requires the user to purchase a high ticket item or do anything that requires anything too extensive would probably not do well on Facebook. For this reason, I recommend doing heavy research into what a college student needs and wants. I prefer to market for college offers, financing, laptops, iPods, auctions, and jobs. You do not have to be limited to those niches, but that is a good start.

First, you need to be sure you have a catchy domain name for your advertisement. Be sure you don’t use any affiliate links or networks that are banned by Facebook. Doing this could get your Facebook Ad account banned right away! Use affiliate link cloakers or have your subdomain URL redirect to your affiliate link, but don’t use direct affiliate links.

Second, you need to find the right offer to match your domain name. I highly recommend signing with a CPA network such as AZoogle, as they offer top payouts and top converting offers. For our example, let’s say you were choosing the internet auction niche. You would want to target Facebook users that were interested in shopping. This will effectively target any Facebook user with an interest in shopping. After all, would you want your ad delivered to a profile that had no interest in buying items? Probably not, you have a much better chance at getting a signup through targeting users interested in shopping. Play around with the categories to see what works best for you. Next, I recommend choosing users that are 21 years and older. After all, you do not want to be promoting your item to people without credit cards. There are plenty of offers you can find on CPA networks like http://Azoogle.com that have offers for people under 21, but you have to do some searching. I personally have the best results keeping my age group above 21.

While we are talking about CPA networks, I’d like to explain it out for people who do not understand. CPA networks are the hottest networks in affiliate networking. If you can find a way to get a lot of affordable traffic, you can make a killing promoting offers like dating sites and other sites that pay-per-signup. Look for a network that offers the best payouts and conversion rates. CPA is literally everywhere now and is quickly becoming the most popular way of marketing.

That’s it for this article. Go get out there and try out Facebook Advertising!

Dirk Wagner is a programmer who has been able to uncover all the secrets of Facebook Applications and making money using Facebook Online. He has created a comprehensive guide called “Facebook Secrets Exposed” which is available by visiting http://www.facebooksecretsexposed.com

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Jan 21

7 Free Social Media Marketing Tools (that Shouldn’t be Free)

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The social media marketing niche is full of hype pipers and hope dopes. Everyday I get a “product launch” email touting the latest Wordpress plugin, software app or marketing system, promising BIG traffic or quit-your-day-job ROI.

If you have been around (the internet marketing scene) for even a few months you’ll know just what I am talking about. I am at the point where I am more interested in the way the product is being marketed than what the prodcut is.

I have settled in to a few (mostly free) web 2.0 tools that make my social media marketing work.

So, shut up and tell you what they are already, right? Got it…

VIDEO SYNDICATION

The big gun in video submission is, of course, Traffic Geyser. This is a great service and, besides taking hours to set up and being priced on the high end, works very well at getting you and your silly videos plastered all over the web. However, recently I stumbled upon a free video submission service called TubeMogul that I like quite well, thank you very much.

TubeMogul allows for automated submission to the 12 big video sites all at once. The interface is super-simple. It allows you to add a title, description, tags and category setting to you video. And you can upload as many videos as you want for nada (FREE!).

Check it out at TubeMogul.com.

SOCIAL MEDIA SUBMITTING AND BOOKMARKING

Some of the new folks get confused here so let me briefly explain… Social media marketing calls for lots of “submitting”. One of the mainstays is submitting your post (your story, your article whatever you call your content) to a social media site.

There are really 2 types of sites for post submission. There’s the social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and technorati which just want you to primarily submit a link and tag. There’s not much voting or browsing of these “bookmarks” going on after you submit.

Then there’s the social news sites like Digg and Propeller. These sites want your link and tags also but you will also need to provide a good description of you post and hope that other vote it up.

So, with that out of the way… On to the freebie.

I have used a few of the paid tools out there to automatically submit to both the social bookmarking sites and the social news sites and, in my opinion, the free tool at SocialMarker.com works better than all of them. You just input your post data, check the sites you want to submit to and arrow through the submissions. “That was easy!”

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Yes, I still do keyword research, I think it is important to keep track of your main keywords and look for variations as new topics come up. I use the free tool from the giant keyword service called Keyword Discovery. The free tool works great for bloggers who are not building 10,000 word PPC campaigns.

IMAGE EDITING

By far, the service I use the most is picnik.com. I always have to crop, resize, fix, etc. the images I need to use. This online editor makes it quick and easy.

VIDEO CAPTURE AND EDITING

Well, this may be a bit advanced for the new folks but just in case you are ready to stick your toes into the video pond, here’s a couple of free tools you’ll need.

First, you will need a good screen capture software. I like the tools from TechSmith, either Camtasia (V3 is free right now) or JingProject.

Once you have you fancy screen capture then head over to Jumpcut.com and start editing. This is an awesome free online editing software that should cost big bucks.

So, there you have it…

The list is not long but, trust me, these free tools will get you f-a-a-a-r in your social media marketing endeavors.

You can try lots of other similar free marketing software, tools and systems; there is an endless number of them that’s for sure.

This is what has worked (and continues to work) for me. Enjoy!

Peter Lenkefi publishes social media marketing and blog promotion tips at Web2Center.com . He is also the co-founder of the Authority Site Center, a membership site dedicated to serious business bloggers.

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Jan 19

Some Powerful Tips for Blog Online Marketing to Build Successful Blogs & Earn Money on the Internet!

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Now, I am going to give you 9 powerful tips you must take into your action seriously for your blog online marketing. With those tips, you can build highly successful and profitable blog online and earn money on the internet. All you have to do is to take those tips in your action and marketing plan seriously.

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Jan 19

Getting Started With Twitter

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What Is This Twitter You Speak Of?

So what is Twitter and how can it be of benefit to you or your business? Twitter is a free online micro-blogging application which gives you the ability to send out short messages (up to 140 characters) called ?tweets? to people who are following you on Twitter. You can send tweets either through your computer or by using your cell phone via a text message. These tweets/messages can be about anything you want and they can include links, as well. Making Twitter even more useful is the ability to send a direct message to someone you are following (this is done by entering @username at the beginning of your message) or replying to someone?s tweet with your own. You would be surprised how common it is to reply to someone?s message then to have someone who is either following you or the person you sent the reply to reply to your initial message and so on.

People can follow you and your tweets by first signing-up for their own free Twitter account at the Twitter site then adding you to their list of people they are following. Once you have created your account, you can either check your Twitter page (your own personal page which appears after you sign-in at the Twitter home page) for any of your friend?s new messages or you can send out your own. But it is much easier, in my opinion, to use one of the many online or desktop applications which give you the ability to do all of this and more.

Twitter As A Communication Tool

Twitter is a quick and easy way to communicate with family, friends, business associates, and also within a company setting. Being an online service, Twitter is available to anyone with online access. All you have to do is login to your account through any number of third-party applications developed for Twitter or through the Twitter site and you are ready to go. Within a company setting, employees could have a Twitter account created for them with the option to have their messages protected. This means only people they (or you or the person in charge of creating the Twitter accounts) approve will be able to send and receive messages from them. The same thing could be done using an instant message program but with Twitter, there would be no software to install and it would be accessible from anywhere with an online connection. Additionally, the person who is in charge of the Twitter accounts will have the power to control who is and who isn?t part of this private Twitter network.

Even though there are tons of online communication applications available, Twitter can also be used as a way for people who are collaborating on a project to stay in touch with one another regardless of where they are. And depending on which third-party application they are using to Twitter with, these conversations can be saved for future reference. There are even some third-party apps which you can use to send files up to 10MB to anyone you are following as long as they are using the same application, that is. Still, a handy feature to have and one which may become a feature of Twitter if there?s a big enough demand for it.

Marketing With Twitter

Here in lies the great thing about Twitter from a business perspective: the marketing potential it offers users. Sure, it is great to send messages and chat using Twitter, but it can also be a great marketing tool if used correctly. Have some breaking news you want to get out quickly? Send it out as a Tweet. Made an important update to your blog or web site? Let people know about it instantly with a Tweet. Want to promote your project, book, movie, whatever by giving away a free download or preview? Send out a Tweet with a URL to the free download. Only want to market something to certain individuals you are following? Simply enter their username preceded by the ?@? and you are set.

Another simple marketing tool available with Twitter is the ability to befriend people who are following someone you already follow. While this practice could backfire on you if you begin to add everyone you find following someone you are following, be picky and just befriend those who either share similar tastes that you do or work in the same field as you or already follow many of the same people you do. Otherwise, you could come off as a spammer which will be a hard image to shake.

Twitter Now And Beyond

Twitter represents a fundamental change in the way people communicate online. There have always been instant messengers and they have their place and purpose but they don?t offer the one thing which sets Twitter apart and that is the ability to instantly communicate with either a couple of people or potentially thousands without the need for proprietary software. No need to download this piece of software in order to communicate with this person or that organization.

Much like how blogging has become a staple of today?s society, Twitter and ?twittering? is on the same path to becoming ingrained in today?s culture despite only being around for less than two years. So simple in its execution, powerful in the marketing opportunities it offers, and ease of use, Twitter will be one of the top web technologies to gain worldwide prominence in 2008.

The Geek Entrepreneur is Wesley Craig Green, an entrepreneur who is a publisher, owner of an online classified ads network of sites, two web sites focusing on independent and digital comics and graphic novels. You can learn more about me at my Geek Entrepreneur blog which is dedicated to entrepreneurship, blogging, inspiration, technology, and small business.

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